Blast off with these space literacy activities for preschoolers! Fun, hands-on ways to learn letters, initial sounds, and rhyming words!
In the last couple weeks of school, we decided to do an inquiry about the sky. Our Driving Questions were, "What do we see in the daytime sky? What do we see in the nighttime sky?" The sun, moon and stars are in Ohio's science standards, but the students always end up being fascinated. The things they said they see were the pretty colors of the sky, clouds, rainbows, the sun, stars and moon. After we listed these, they started telling me things they noticed that happens in the sky, and then the wonders started. I love how much more complex their wonders get as the year goes on! "Is the earth still, or is it moving?" "Where does the sun go at night?" "Does the sun move around the earth like the moon does?" "If the sun is a star, why is it so much bigger than the other stars?" "How do the sun and moon move?" I started out with rainbows and sky colors. I found that most of them already knew the order of the colors and how rainbows are made. They loved creating rainbows though so I set out an area for them to create with art materials and prisms with flashlights. They were fascinated with the colors that the sky can be so we read "Sky Colors" and I set out opportunities for the kids to create their own "sky colors." They turned out beautiful!! We read many books about clouds, both informational and fictional. They learned that there are three main kinds of clouds. They showed their learning by creating a mural of the daytime sky. Here are some working on the different kinds of clouds. Next we learned about the sun. Here they are making the sun for our mural. We had noticed that you could also see the moon in the daytime sky but it was lighter. We made a moon out of vellum paper and added it to our mural along with facts that we had learned. Here is the finished Daytime Sky Mural! They were amazed that the sun was not moving around the earth, but that the earth was spinning instead. As we were exploring this concept further, they started wondering about the earth. "Is the earth in the sky, because, you know, it is in space and space is the sky?" How does the earth spin but we don't feel like we are moving?" "What is inside the earth?" We took a little break from what we saw in the sky to address these wonders. They created spin art of the earth and wrote one fact they thought was interesting that they had learned about the earth. We also made diagrams showing the inside of the earth. Next we started learning about the moon and the stars. I set out some invitations for them to research, explore, and show what they notice. I put out a picture of Van Gogh's Starry Night for inspiration at the easel. They started on our night sky mural. We started with the stars. Some created their own constellations! They made them all white, but then later added other colors as they found out that stars can be red, blue, yellow and brown. We added the phases of the moon: Here is a picture of our night sky! I wish that we had more time for this inquiry! They discovered galaxies and wanted to explore those further. This happens at the end of every year! They get so excited about exploring and inquiring as they are introduced to new and unfamiliar things because they are in that mindset! Everything they see, they want to learn more about! Seeing them like this at the end of the year, I would love to see them in an inquiry based classroom with this mindset in first grade! I think their excitement for learning and things they would want to explore would almost be hard to keep up with! If they did inquiry and interest based learning in first grade (or any grade!), the learning would be unstoppable and amazing!!
Inquiry stems from questions and the focus of this bumper provocation pack is to develop conceptual thinking and questioning skills in your students. The art of the provocation is where we bring the magic and wonder to the inquiry. This big bundle is packed full of images that all relate to the concepts within the IBPYP theme of Sharing the Planet. This resource is exactly what is going to save you time as you are equipped with highly engaging images that will stretch the children’s thinking, develop skills and invite their curiosity into the inquiry all through carefully guided thinking routines and graphic organisers. UK & USA spelling These are digital and printable, making it so easy to adapt to your planning. Win-win! NO MORE HUNTING FOR GREAT PROVOCATIONS! SAVES YOU SO MUCH TIME! that will engage so you are absolutely set to pick and choose for multiple related concepts within Sharing the Planet. •Over 40 high engagement images that link to the related concepts within the IB PYP theme enabling greater understanding of the big ideas and connecting with ANY unit of inquiry for the upper grades. •27 concept based images/quotes with guiding questions, ideal for using with whole class discussions. (sharing the earth, communities, relationships, peace & conflict, sustainability, climate change, adaptation, survival , responsibility etc.) •7 different thinking routines/graphic organisers that enable a progressive development of the ATL skills together with easy differentiation. •**Blank templates for each graphic organizer to add your own provocation materials. •Self-assessment & student reflection of skills included This bank of high interest material will keep your inquirers thinking and wondering throughout the entire inquiry, as you integrate it into your learning experiences, use with on-going reflection and even assessment of skills. You will find skills focused graphic organisers, supporting visible thinking routines and for implicit skills practice of: •Observation •Making connections •Using our schema •Analysing data •Literal thinking vs. inferential thinking •Synthesising •Formulating questions •Accountable talk •Collaborative thinking You can find a ton of more provocation materials for each theme. Take a look: How the World Works Who We Are How We Express Ourselves You may also be interested in my complete units of inquiry, providing transdisciplinary activities for all of the themes. Take a look here or look at the store of my website for a larger selection. You can find many more inquiry based tips and tools in my store an on my blog, PYPteachingtools.com. ENJOY! Susan Powers
One of my favourite inquiries in maternelle so far has been our latest endeavour- learning about space! It seems that every time we ask the students what they are interested in, they mention space, the moon, astronauts, and Star Wars! So we jumped right in to all things space! Dramatic play turned into a space shuttle and we worked with the students to co-create the space scene. My favourite dramatic play centers are those that we co-create with our students. While I love the beautiful *Pinterest Perfect* dramatic play areas as much as the next person, I totally believe in the fact that the children will be more engaged and invested in their play if they help create the materials they use and the area where they play. We found lots of space-themed books at our school library, a lab coat and tubing from a hardware store to act as our space suits. Not pictured is the huge box we brought in and turned into a space shuttle together! At our discovery center, we learned about the phases of the moon. We used this 'Les phases de la lune' playdough mat from my L'espace: Literacy and Science Activities for Kindergarten unit. After reading a book about the phases of the moon, we used playdough and a circular cookie cutter to create the various moon phases. This resource isn't part of my space unit but was tons of fun. One of our ECEs found cute, star-shaped beads at Michael's and used black pipe cleaners to create different constellations. This idea was pretty basic but the kids loved it! Our kinders coloured the planets and cut them out. They then glued them on black construction paper and made Solar System Crowns! This idea is all over Pinterest in English but you can find it in French in my space unit. I always like to set up our discovery center with a variety of books, vocabulary terms, and items to provoke deeper inquiry into our current area of interest. A popular center during this inquiry was the sensory table. (Side note: I created this sensory table but using a jigsaw to cut out a hole in the top of a small, kids' IKEA table and inserted a large, clear plastic bin. I'm super happy with it and would eventually like to get a second table to go beside it for when our sensory play gets bigger than the space available. Read: all the time.) This sensory play experience was created by one of our ECEs, who filled it with dry black beans and a variety of space-themed objects, such as stars, rockets, planets, etc. We also added the upper and lower case letter rocket ship puzzles from my space unit. The table that I currently have directly next to our sensory bin is a great place for the kids to be able to take the letter puzzles out and put them together. Another popular center was our small world play / loose parts area. This area changes depending on what we are learning about and this week we put down a black felt board as a base and left out baskets of planets, words for labelling, story rocks (flat, black rocks that I painted with white circles and then coloured with Sharpies to look like the planets of our solar system), astronauts, and small stars. The students played with this area in many different ways and we were able to scaffold and extend their play throughout the week. In all, this was an awesome inquiry and one that we extended and delved deeper into for several weeks. Unlike some inquiries we have explored, it was relatively easy to find materials in French, however, it is often difficult to find books and materials that are developmentally appropriate for our French Immersion kiddos. I created my space unit in order to have a starting point and some fun centers that would be just at the right level. If you like to purchase the unit, click on the link below: French Space-Themed Literacy and Science Centers I hope I was able to spark some ideas for you if you are about to begin a space inquiry with your little ones soon. xo Jess
Exploring the solar system through inquiry-based learning
This Space Science Lesson Unit will have your little learners shooting for the stars with excitement! Teach them all about space with this printable lesson!
Exploring the solar system through inquiry-based learning
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to...
This super simple activity gives kids a hands-on and concrete way to understand how planets orbit the sun in a large circle.
Howdy y'all! Lindsay here . . . Well, since Kacie from Doodle Bugs is taking a well-deserved break from her fabulous Five For Friday link...
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to...
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to...
Get children into the night sky. This constellation crafts creates star tube viewers made from upcycled materials to learn the stars
Students love learning about space! Teaching the order of the planets from the sun is such a fun lesson, and students love making this Planet Flipbook. I created this flipbook as a hands-on way for students to learn the order of the planets, but also to pull in some fine motor skills practice. To begin […]
Math and literacy space activities for kindergarten. Have fun with these engaging centers while learning about stars and planets.
These counting syllables activities include a variety of games and worksheets to help kids develop their phonological awareness. They make a great
We recently introduced a few new "items" to the children; wooden reels and circles as well as a multitude of light accessories (which I had sitting in storage for awhile). You can't begin to imagine how innovative they have been in their initial tinkering.
Students love learning about space! Teaching the order of the planets from the sun is such a fun lesson, and students love making this Planet Flipbook. I created this flipbook as a hands-on way for students to learn the order of the planets, but also to pull in some fine motor skills practice. To begin […]
These free Planet Counting Puzzles for kids are a great way to practice number sequencing while learning more about planets and outer space!
I saw a variation of a solar system hat on Pinterest recently but decided to put my own spin on it when we studied space a couple of weeks ago. Here's how to make it: First, take a piece of black cardstock or construction paper and cut it lengthwise into 4-inch by 12-inch strips. There
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to explore the Earth and the moon during Thinking, Learning and Dicovering Time, inviting them to look closer and document what they noticed. We looked closer at maps and the kids created their own maps of a community complete with symbols, a key, and a rose compass. They kept asking what the earth was made of so we investigated the inside of the earth and documented what we learned. In Writer's Workshop we are investigating, enjoying, and writing poetry so we worked together to create a beautiful poem about the earth. Some kids decided as they were playing that they wanted to use different materials to measure how big around the earth was. Some areas invited them to show what they knew about the moon. This class is so crazy about clay that I had to let them show what they noticed about the phases of the moon using clay! They also learned that the craters were formed by meteors hitting the surface of the moon. Here they could explore how that happened. Books were set out at the writing area to encourage kids to write about the earth and the moon. Many books were written not only about the earth and the moon, but the sun, stars and planets also. The kids have started putting teasers on the back of their books to get others to read them! Pictures were set up at the easel to encourage them to show what they noticed about the moon and earth through art. We mixed flour with white paint to create a painting with a textured surface of the moon. They used a bottle to create craters on he surface than wrote a fact about the moon. We made a giant mural using the textured paint to show what we learned about the phases of the moon. The kids labeled each phase. They found out that on the moon they could jump six times further than here on earth. They had so much fun seeing how far they could jump if they were on the moon! They marked how far they would be able to jump by sticking a piece of tape on the spot and writing their name on it. We also investigated the sun. They learned that it was the center of our solar system and that even though it looks like the sun is moving across the sky, really it is the earth spinning like a top, not the sun moving, that makes it appear to go around the sky. They also learned that it takes one yeR for the earth to travel around the sun. They wrote and illustrated how many times they have traveled around the sun so far! We were witnessing some beautiful sunsets so I put out warm colors and sunset pictures for inspiration at the easels. The kids were surprised to find out that the sun was made out of gasses and not hot lava! This started a discussion about the states of matter. We talked about how everything is a solid, liquid or gas. We were also talking about the Suns heat energy! I figured out a great way to show both! We took chocolate chips out in the sun and observed what happened. They saw that the Sun's heat energy turned them into a liquid! We dipped pretzels into the warmed chocolate and enjoyed a sun baked treat! New areas were set up around our room to explore stars. I set up areas for them to create constellations using different materials. As we researched, we found out that stars are not all white and that their color shows how hot the stars are. The red are the coolest and the blue are the hottest. A group wanted to make a universe of stars so they used cotton swabs and paint to create one. Our building area became a display area for our universe. Mrs. Thompson let us borrow her planets to hang on the ceiling. The kids referred to these often! We had fun creating sight word constalations with push pins! Mrs. Gore let us borrow her Universe Sight Word Search. We used stars to practice our addition skills. I displayed Van Gogh's Starry Night with some glass beads and was AMAZED at what some kids created! They collaborated and worked as a team to create their Starry Night with the loose parts! Some asked of they could paint Starry Night so I moved the picture and put out similar colors for them. They did a beautiful job! We created web maps to organize our data. I put out recyclables at the engineering table and challenged them to make Space Ships! This was a huge hit! They were so creative as they planned out thief designs and then followed their plan. Some also created space ships which our pattern blocks. Lastly we started investigating the planets. They loved creating planet sculptures and other planet inspired art. The kids wrote informational books about the planets. The kids worked together to paint the planets and then add them to our universe. I love following the kids interests and digging deeper. In the past, when I taught using themes, a space unit would have lasted two weeks. These kids have been investigating space for around six weeks! Their learning is so much deeper, their experiences so much richer, when you follow their interests and get rid of your time limits!
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to explore the Earth and the moon during Thinking, Learning and Dicovering Time, inviting them to look closer and document what they noticed. We looked closer at maps and the kids created their own maps of a community complete with symbols, a key, and a rose compass. They kept asking what the earth was made of so we investigated the inside of the earth and documented what we learned. In Writer's Workshop we are investigating, enjoying, and writing poetry so we worked together to create a beautiful poem about the earth. Some kids decided as they were playing that they wanted to use different materials to measure how big around the earth was. Some areas invited them to show what they knew about the moon. This class is so crazy about clay that I had to let them show what they noticed about the phases of the moon using clay! They also learned that the craters were formed by meteors hitting the surface of the moon. Here they could explore how that happened. Books were set out at the writing area to encourage kids to write about the earth and the moon. Many books were written not only about the earth and the moon, but the sun, stars and planets also. The kids have started putting teasers on the back of their books to get others to read them! Pictures were set up at the easel to encourage them to show what they noticed about the moon and earth through art. We mixed flour with white paint to create a painting with a textured surface of the moon. They used a bottle to create craters on he surface than wrote a fact about the moon. We made a giant mural using the textured paint to show what we learned about the phases of the moon. The kids labeled each phase. They found out that on the moon they could jump six times further than here on earth. They had so much fun seeing how far they could jump if they were on the moon! They marked how far they would be able to jump by sticking a piece of tape on the spot and writing their name on it. We also investigated the sun. They learned that it was the center of our solar system and that even though it looks like the sun is moving across the sky, really it is the earth spinning like a top, not the sun moving, that makes it appear to go around the sky. They also learned that it takes one yeR for the earth to travel around the sun. They wrote and illustrated how many times they have traveled around the sun so far! We were witnessing some beautiful sunsets so I put out warm colors and sunset pictures for inspiration at the easels. The kids were surprised to find out that the sun was made out of gasses and not hot lava! This started a discussion about the states of matter. We talked about how everything is a solid, liquid or gas. We were also talking about the Suns heat energy! I figured out a great way to show both! We took chocolate chips out in the sun and observed what happened. They saw that the Sun's heat energy turned them into a liquid! We dipped pretzels into the warmed chocolate and enjoyed a sun baked treat! New areas were set up around our room to explore stars. I set up areas for them to create constellations using different materials. As we researched, we found out that stars are not all white and that their color shows how hot the stars are. The red are the coolest and the blue are the hottest. A group wanted to make a universe of stars so they used cotton swabs and paint to create one. Our building area became a display area for our universe. Mrs. Thompson let us borrow her planets to hang on the ceiling. The kids referred to these often! We had fun creating sight word constalations with push pins! Mrs. Gore let us borrow her Universe Sight Word Search. We used stars to practice our addition skills. I displayed Van Gogh's Starry Night with some glass beads and was AMAZED at what some kids created! They collaborated and worked as a team to create their Starry Night with the loose parts! Some asked of they could paint Starry Night so I moved the picture and put out similar colors for them. They did a beautiful job! We created web maps to organize our data. I put out recyclables at the engineering table and challenged them to make Space Ships! This was a huge hit! They were so creative as they planned out thief designs and then followed their plan. Some also created space ships which our pattern blocks. Lastly we started investigating the planets. They loved creating planet sculptures and other planet inspired art. The kids wrote informational books about the planets. The kids worked together to paint the planets and then add them to our universe. I love following the kids interests and digging deeper. In the past, when I taught using themes, a space unit would have lasted two weeks. These kids have been investigating space for around six weeks! Their learning is so much deeper, their experiences so much richer, when you follow their interests and get rid of your time limits!
This page has a lot of free printable Transportation worksheets for kids,parents and preschool teachers.
We did this project today to help D understand the difference between a city, a state, a country, and a continent. My mom found this activity for us on another website called "Kid World Citizen". There are 6 layers of specificity: My Home My City My State My Country My Continent My Planet We drew pictures of our homes and cut out maps of our city. Online we printed out images of our state, country, continent, and planet. Then we glued it all together and labeled the pages. We also wrote the answers on the back of each page. D still has a bit of trouble with the difference between what is a country and what is a continent, but I think this project will help her understand it better.
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
Hello, hello, and welcome to part 4 of my 10 part series, Blog Backlog: Playing Catch Up! I'm really enjoying getting to share some blog worthy things from the last month or two of school. Today I'm sharing a simple, yet easy, meaningful, and fun science activity. My favorite science topic in 5th grade is SPACE! Here I am modeling wearing my planets t-shirt that I bought just for teaching this subject! I was super lucky to be placed with an amazing intern this semester - she's going to be an awesome teacher soon - and she took the class outside to play with toilet paper. Well, actually, there was a scientific purpose. She had groups of students roll out the toiler paper and place a cut-out of each planet at their scaled distance from the sun. It really helped the kids get an idea how far the planets are from each other. Unfortunately, with all of the things that happen in our final quarter, sometimes there just isn't enough time to do as many in-depth activities in science that I would like. I needed a quick and meaningful way for my kiddos to get to know our Solar System. So, I came up with these simple Solar System Posters. I had the students take a sheet of 17" x 22" copy paper and fold it in half lengthwise (hot dog style!) They opened it up and cut along the crease to create two long pieces of paper. They then glued these together with about an inch or two of overlap to make an even longer paper. Next, we folded this to create 12 sections... so we folded it in half, then in thirds, then in half again. Then students labeled each section... * Sun * Mercury * Venus * Earth * Mars * Asteroid Belt * Jupiter * Saturn * Uranus * Neptune * Pluto * Our Solar System Students used their science books to research each section of the solar system. As you can tell, the focus wasn't on just the planets, we included the sun, asteroid belt, and our dwarf planet friend Pluto! In each of the sections the students wrote at least three important facts about that part of the solar system and included a colored illustration. I absolutely loved their illustrations and they looked great hanging on the wall in our room. I find that some of the best and most meaningful activities are projects where students get to complete their own research and use their own creativity. I hope you enjoyed part 4 of my 10 part series, part 5 will be up soon!
My new first grade teaching partner this year is going to teach me a lot of fun new things, I can already tell. Here is a picture I took of her inquiry cycle board after our first six-week unit: Pr…
Circle books are engaging and they make for a great classroom decoration! Now, you can get a circle book for both animal life cycles and for plant life cycles! It's a win-win! File Type PDF (Acrobat) Document File Be sure that you have an application to open this file type before downloading and/or purchasing.
Learning about space has never been as much fun as it was recently at Wonder Years Preschool Townsend in Townsend, Massachusetts!There the students had a whole week dedicated to space where they d
Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.
